Border guards seized a British lorry on its way to make a delivery to the Iranian military - after discovering it was packed with radioactive material that could be used to build a dirty bomb. The lorry set off from Kent on its way to Tehran but was stopped by officials at a checkpoint on Bulgaria's northernborder with Romania after a scanner indicated radiation levels 200 times above normal. The lorry was impounded and the Bulgarian Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NPA) was called out. On board they found ten lead-lined boxes addressed to the Iranian Ministry of Defence. Inside each box...

An optimal shielding configuration has been realized during the phase I study, and it is referred to as a Magnetospheric Dipolar Torus (MDT). This configuration has the singular ability to deflect the vast majority of the GCR including HZE ions. In addition, the MDT shields both habitat and magnets eliminating the secondary particle irradiation hazard, which can dominate over the primary GCR for the closed magnetic topologies that have been investigated in the past. MDT shielding also reduces structural, mass and power requirements.... During the phase I study MSNW developed 3-D relativistic particle code to evaluate magnetic shielding of GCR...

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Can cellphones really cause cancer? It’s been a question that’s dogged researchers for years. However, a group of experts say the results of some tests are pretty surprising. Millions of people constantly call, text, click, take pictures and play on cellphones. Even the top cellular radiation researchers from around the world have a hard time untethering. But, they gathered recently in North Carolina to talk about cellphone concerns and whether they really do increase the chances of developing cancer. The panel voted that the results from years of testing on mice and rats were more significant than...

What caused radiation spike in north west China: North Korea, Europe or something else? Levels of iodine-129 in capital of Shaanxi province peaked two days after hydrogen bomb test 2,000km away PUBLISHED : Saturday, 30 December, 2017, 8:30am UPDATED : Saturday, 30 December, 2017, 11:17pm Radiation levels in a Chinese city nearly 2,000km from a North Korean nuclear test site spiked following Pyongyang’s latest and most powerful nuclear weapons test in September, according to Chinese scientists. However, the spike in iodine-129 levels Xian was probably not related to the detonation of a 100-kilotonne hydrogen bomb in a tunnel at the...

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — California health officials have a new message for cellphone users. For the first time ever, the California Department of Public Health is releasing guidelines about harmful cellphone radiation and how you can avoid it. Dr. Karen Smith with the California Department Of Public Health said, “We recognize that there are a lot of people in the general public that have some concerns about their cellphones and whether using a cellphone is safe.” Smith said, “When you sleep, you keep the cellphone at least arm’s length away from your body. And also, not carrying your cellphone in...

North Koreans who defected but once lived near a nuclear testing site in the rogue nation now believe they are experiencing the dangerous effects of exposure to harmful radiation — and it's triggered severe health problems, according to a report published Sunday. "So many people died we began calling it 'ghost disease,'" Lee Jeong Hwa, who in 2010 escaped her home in Kilju County where the nuclear testing site Punggye-ri is located, told NBC News. "We thought we were dying because we were poor and we ate badly. Now we know it was the radiation." Lee isn’t the only defector...

Russia's meteorological service has reported “extremely high pollution” of a radioactive isotope in the Urals near a facility that previously suffered the third worst nuclear catastrophe in history. The news bolsters international reports that a ruthenium-106 leak originating in the Urals sent a radioactive cloud over Europe. Greenpeace Russia has said it will ask the prosecutor general to investigate the possible cover-up of a nuclear accident. Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear company, said in a statement to The Telegraph on Tuesday there had been "no unreported accidents" and the ruthenium-106 emission was "not linked to any Rosatom site". Its Mayak facility,...

N.Korean Nuclear Test Site 'Heavily Contaminated' By Kim Myong-song November 06, 2017 11:09 North Korea's nuclear test site in Kilju, North Hamgyong Province is turning into a wasteland after six underground nuclear tests, according to witness accounts. North Koreans who defected from the region said 80 percent of trees that are planted die, underground wells have run dry and babies are being born with defects. The Research Association of Vision of North Korea, which includes North Korean defectors, interviewed 21 defectors who used to live in Kilju in the last couple of years. "I heard from a relative in Kilju...

/begin my translation N. Korean Soldiers and Family Members Exposed to Radiation Treated at a Hospital in North Hwanghae Province 2017/11/01 09:53 Asahi Reports ... "N. Korea is moving mobile launchers around every day since mid-October" (Tokyo=Yonhap News) Kim Jung-sun = North Korea is treating soldiers exposed to radiation in past nuclear tests at a hospital near Pyongyang, the Asahi Shimbun of Japan reported from Seoul on Nov. 1. The newspaper said, "Treatment on radiation exposure is being carried out at a military hospital at Joong-hwa Countty, North Hwanghae Province, near Pyongyang." It is revealed that soldiers and their families...

Chinese scientists warn North Korea about disaster threat at nuclear test site Researchers brief Pyongyang delegation on Beijing’s concerns over facility close to their border PUBLISHED : Friday, 27 October, 2017, 8:17pm UPDATED : Saturday, 28 October, 2017, 10:25am Chinese geologists have warned their North Korean counterparts of a potential catastrophic collapse of a North Korean underground nuclear test site on China’s doorstep. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geology and Geophysics briefed a North Korean delegation in Beijing late last month on the threat of an implosion at the mountainous Punggye-ri nuclear facility, about 80km from...

Space Age, scientists have understood how beyond Earth’s magnetic field, space is permeated by radiation. This includes Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs), Solar Particle Events (SPEs) ... NASA is able to protect crews from SPEs by advising them to seek shelter in more heavily shielded areas of the station... GCRs are more of a challenge. These energetic particles, which are primarily composed of high-energy protons and atomic nuclei, can come from anywhere within our galaxy and are capable of penetrating even metal. To make matters worse, when these particles cut through material, they generate a cascade reaction of particles, sending neutrons,...

One of the techniques currently under development that it is following is NMN, a compound expected to enter clinical trials after it was shown to rejuvenate elderly mice in laboratory tests. It is also considering making more advanced tweaks or alterations to the DNA of its astronauts, although the moral implications of such a radical step will need to be addressed. This includes epigenetic modifications, which alter the way genes are read by the body without making changes to the underlying DNA code. Using such a technique would allow Nasa's scientists to turn up the volume on one genetic instruction...

Xi-Cheng Zhang has worked for nearly a decade to solve a scientific puzzle that many in the research community believed to be impossible: producing terahertz waves—a form of electromagnetic radiation in the far infrared frequency range—from liquid water. Now, as reported in a paper published in Applied Physics Letters, researchers at the University of Rochester have "made the impossible, possible," says Zhang, the M. Parker Givens Professor of Optics. "Figuring out how to generate terahertz waves from liquid water is a fundamental breakthrough because water is such an important element in the human body and on Earth." Terahertz waves have...

Chinese residents concerned over NK nuclear tests, fallout By Zhao Yusha Source:Global Times Published: 2017/9/7 23:38:40 Chinese residents continued to express concern over nuclear fallout, even as Chinese environmental officials said North Korea's sixth nuclear test had no effect on China's environment or health. "My friends and I are very worried about North Korea's constant nuclear tests. We are near North Korea," a resident from Yanji, Yanbian, 10 kilometers from the border between China and North Korea, told the Global Times on Thursday. A resident surnamed Liu from East China's Shandong Province said that she refuses to eat rice from...

China detects rising radiation levels in areas close to North Korean nuclear blast site Monitoring stations record upward trend, but expert says it could be explained by natural causes PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 06 September, 2017, 9:52pm UPDATED : Thursday, 07 September, 2017, 10:58am Chinese scientists are considering whether a small but gradual increase in environmental radiation picked up by monitoring stations close to the border with North Korea is related to the nuclear test carried out over the weekend. The changes could be down to environmental factors and unrelated to the nuclear test, but the trend was “worthy of attention”,...

Radiation leak at North Korean nuclear test site 'inevitable', says Chinese expert By Neil Connor, beijing 5 SEPTEMBER 2017 A radiation leak at the site of North Korea’s massive bomb test is “inevitable”, a Chinese nuclear weapons expert warned, after authorities in China reported that the mountain where the explosion took place had collapsed. China’s Earthquake Network Centre said a second 4.6 magnitude ‘earthquake tremor’ happened eight minutes after Sunday’s initial explosion, which measured 6.3 magnitude. Authorities in China said the tremor could be a result of a “cave in”, a potentially devastating collapse of the mountain at the Punggye-ri...

The single mountain under which North Korea most likely conducted its five most recent nuclear bomb tests, including the latest and most powerful on Sunday, could be at risk of collapsing, a Chinese scientist said. By measuring and analysing the shock waves caused by the blasts, and picked up by quake stations in China and neighbouring countries, researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhui province, said they were confident that they were all carried out from under the same mountain at the Punggye-ri test site. The team from the seismic and deep earth physics...

The mountain where North Korea likely conducted its five most recent nuclear bomb tests could be at risk of collapse, potentially releasing radiation into the atmosphere, according to Chinese experts who measured shock waves caused by the blasts. Scientists from the seismic and deep earth physics laboratory at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhu province, believe the most recent tests were carried out under a mountain at North Korea's Punggye-ri test site, according to a statement published on their website. The group's leader, geophysicist Wen Lianxing, believes the margin of error for their prediction to...

Chinese Official Says China Might Invade Taiwan If Â“Peaceful Reunification Takes Too LongÂ” In a recent interview Wang Zaixi (çŽ‹ĺś¨ĺ¸Ś), a former vice-chairman of ChinaÂ’s Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said that Beijing might resort to the use of force if Â“peaceful re-unificationÂ” between China and Taiwan Â“takes too longÂ”. WangÂ’s statements echo the increasingly assertive stance of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) towards the island since Xi Jinping took office in 2012. In the interview Wang Zaixi stated that although the Taiwan question is a complex issue that must be resolved in the long term, there Â“must...

A whistleblower is making some of the same complaints against the Obama administration over its record of providing congressionally mandated payouts to nuclear workers as Barack Obama did about the George W. Bush administration's. Obama, when he was a senator in the middle of his White House bid, admonished the Bush Labor Department over complaints of bureaucratic bungling and intentional efforts to deny or drag out payouts to workers who lost their health building the nation's Cold War nuclear arsenal. [snip] Obama went on to say in the interview that he found it "deeply troubling" that the Bush administration would...